Shadowforged (Light & Shadow)

by Katson, Moira

  My guilt was meaningless, misplaced, and worse than that, it was dangerous. There was no sense in mourning a friendship that had been doomed from the start. I told myself that, very sternly, trying to mimic Roine’s voice, or Miriel’s. They would chide me for my soft feelings, and I chided myself. But it did not help. I had lied to a man who was my friend, and that had hurt him, and it did not matter that this was a game of intrigue—it still hurt. I still felt guilty when I watched him, and saw the wall behind his eyes.

  It would not be until much later that I could look back and realize that Temar had been a shrewder judge of character than he realized. He had sought a tiny copy of himself, a child he could mold into an assassin as he was, and he had found one. His error lay in seeking a child with the same fierce loyalty that made him so valuable to the Duke. He had asked me to shape myself to Miriel, to be her shadow and her servant in all things, and yet neither Temar nor the Duke had thought far enough to realize that I would be loyal to Miriel and not to them.

  I wonder, now, if Temar ever understood that fact.

  So, denied his friendship, I followed him about the palace, and I had the chance to see his genius in action. It turned out, in the wake of the King’s revelation and the firestorm of near-scandal, that Temar was a courtier without match—only he pandered to servants, who then whispered to their masters. I heard some of the wild rumors that had swept the castle, each more lurid than the last, but by now those had been dismissed as wild fancy; it took determination to pry them out of my paid informant in the stables.

  No, by now Miriel was no longer a whore in the making, but instead the tragic love of the King, an icon of virginity, his only friend. I heard detailed stories of how she had sworn that she loved him more than life itself, and would rather die than cast a shadow onto the name of the shining prince who would bring a Golden Age to Heddred. She had been his councilor, an advocate for peace, a clear-eyed advisor, a defender of his ideals.

  Everywhere—everywhere—I walked, Temar had gone before me, with a whisper here, a shocked denial there. His network of informants was now turned outwards, and I marveled at it, and sighed that his chilly demeanor forbade questions on just how he had accomplished such a marvel. Far from sharing delighted secrets as to how he had protected the Duke’s interest, our lessons were a great show of stilted awkwardness. For days, Temar barely looked at me. He lectured me on throws and holds until I was fairly yawning, and only practiced them with me when he could find nothing more to say. We moved together like dancers, politely avoiding each other’s eyes.

  He could not be cold to me forever, but the thaw was very slow. First, he forgot himself and helped me up from the floor after a throw. Then it was an absent-minded greeting when I came into the room, and later a careless laugh when we saw a lordling trip over his absurd shoes. I did all I could to hasten the return to normalcy, one day bringing him a roll when I knew he had not been able to have his dinner, another day arriving early to set out the gear so he would not have to, and sometimes he smiled at me before remembering his mistrust.

  We spoke as little as possible on the matter of Miriel and the King, and we never once mentioned the matter of the poison in my food. We both knew what I had done, from the lies to the evasions, and I saw how much that hurt him. I knew better than to ask Temar outright, as I had asked the Duke, if he had put the poison in my food. I did not know what I would do if the answer was yes, and Temar, for all his secretive qualities, was not a commander and a politician—where the Duke had only stared, Temar’s face would flicker. I knew that I would see the truth, and I feared it even more than I feared another assassination attempt.

  Miriel saw it. Indeed, she saw more than I wished she would, and our alliance was young enough still that she doubted me. We were always circling each other, clinging together for comfort and sharing secrets, and still fearing whenever we saw a hint of betrayal. It had been simmering beneath the surface for weeks, and it came to head one day. Temar had brought us a message from the Duke and then withdrawn, and I looked after him down the hall.

  “Don’t look at him like that,” Miriel hissed at me, and I turned to her with a ready scowl. I was bad-tempered, aching from my lessons, and was baited into a fight easily enough.

  “Like what?” I demanded.

  “You love him,” she said flatly. “You’re besotted with him.”

  “With the man who might have put poison in our food,” I said, trying to make a joke of it. She did not smile.

  “I know,” she said coldly. “I would have thought that you would learn your lesson from that. But you have not. So, now I am ordering you: put aside your feelings for him.”

  “He trained me…” My voice trailed off as I struggled to put words to it. Miriel was surrounded by her own kind, young women seeking advantageous marriages, nobles brokering power. Temar was the only other one like me in the world. He was my rival and my friend, in a way that no one else could be, not even Miriel. He was the only one like me in the world.

  Miriel did not care. She stared at me with such hard eyes that I wondered if I had been mistaken in my assessment of her. I wondered if she had no heart at all, like a clockwork doll.

  “The day will come when you and he will be declared enemies,” she said brutally. “So you forget your feelings for him now. Because otherwise we’re both dead, and I won’t die for your folly.”

  “Like your folly?” Wilhelm. It was the only weapon I had, and even my shame at pressing her on her very sorest point did not keep me from doing so. She clenched her hands and swallowed, and I attacked on another front. “Or the rebellion?”

  “That’s different. They could be our allies one day, I have a plan for it. Temar will always be your enemy.”

  I hated her for that. I could have reminded her that I watched her all the time, and that I knew she wanted to dislike the King more than she did. I could have reminded her that she slipped sometimes, and started to tell him what she really thought about one topic or another. I wanted to tell her that I was not just a Shadow.

  I had made my vow, however. I had told her that I was on her side, only hers. I had forsworn the complicated loyalties of a human. And for some reason, whenever I opened my mouth to tell her that she could take her vow back, for I was done with it, I could never make the words come out. Even as I told myself that I was a fool, even as I waited to be proven wrong, I could not help but hope that Miriel had meant her vow just as I had meant mine.

  The last days of winter were not a time of joy. They were a time of gathering war, of learning to navigate the snake pit of the court, and Miriel and I did so in a strange isolation. We could only half-trust each other, and we had sworn not to trust anyone else at all; I, at least, knew now that this was more difficult than I had reckoned by far, and I tried to hold my resentment close. I would never have said it out loud, but in the darkness of the night sometimes I thought that Roine had been right: no good came of courts. I should just leave.

  Chapter 6

  In the torrential downpour that marked the end of winter, a messenger arrived from Dusan of Ismir, demanding to see the King alone. The pageboys had huddled inside, out of the rain, and so it was only the Royal Guard, fiercely loyal to the King, who saw the man. It was the Royal Guard, who, now accustomed to the avidly inquisitive nature of the court and Council, and the increasingly secretive nature of the King himself, escorted the messenger directly to the King’s chambers.

  Thus, there was no one to remark on the fact that the King had received a messenger, and no one to call a meeting of the Council. No one knew to be listening at the door when the messenger announced very simply that King Dusan now held proof that his former heir had been assassinated by an agent of none other than a member of the King’s Council. Holding proof, Dusan required that Garad bring the man to justice.

  The King, ever unpredictable and more than slightly unsure of himself, ordered the messenger held in the royal presence chambers, and instructed the man to speak to no one else, n
ot any of the Council, not even the Dowager Queen, on pain of death. Then he sent a messenger, at a dead run, to find me and bid that Miriel come to the King at once, discreetly, for reasons he could not name.

  Donnett let me go early, with a glower at the messenger, and I toweled off, trying not to wonder what this strange summons might mean. I wondered if we should tell the Duke, and at length decided only to send a message—with no thoughts on what the summons might mean, how could the Duke tell Miriel what to say? And so the only remaining puzzle was how to get Miriel away from her tutors and to the royal chambers themselves without being seen. Now was not the time to go exploring in the tunnels below the buildings.

  In the end, the best I could do was bid her change her gown and put on a cloak. I told Anna to send a message to the Duke, and then I led Miriel on a circuitous path, through kitchens and servants’ corridors, finally coming into the main hallway near the entrance to the King’s rooms. It was a back corridor, ostensibly blocked off from the throng of people who waited near the main doors for a glimpse of him, and two guards looked round sharply at the sound. I checked that no one else was about, and then beckoned Miriel out of the servants’ corridor.

  For a moment, the two of us only stared around ourselves in shock. We came to the Palace proper for dinner and services, but we had never been allowed to roam around. Even I, who sneaked to the library every few weeks, had never spared a glance for my surroundings. In daylight, the Palace, even this back hallway, was so beautiful that I could hardly believe my eyes. The columns that flanked the windows were carved in the shape of birds, fish, leaping deer, each different and perfect. The windows themselves were set with panes of colored glass, so that light of scarlet, sapphire, and royal purple was cast on the rich marble floors. Up on the vaulted ceilings were painted tableaux of the saints: Saint Eral with his sheaf of wheat, Saint Nerian with her quill and parchment.

  The Royal Guard cared little for our amazement. “Who are you?” one of the two demanded. “You—are you carrying weapons?”

  I froze, but Miriel drew back the hood of her gown and smiled her seductive smile, and the guards relaxed at once. None of them, I was sure, could be unaware of the King’s infatuation, and they had been told to admit her. With another suspicious glare at me, they opened the doors and ushered us inside, from one richly-appointed chamber into another, and another. We passed through an antechamber, hung with velvets and silks and with a throne for the King to receive guests, through a reading room with brocade couches and hanging lamps, and into the King’s own privy chamber itself.

  I had never seen the King so distraught. When we entered the room, he was prowling around like a caged lion, and his eyes looked haunted. Miriel let her cloak slip off her shoulders, and as I caught it and looked for somewhere to hang it, she went to him at once, her hands held out.

  “Your Grace,” she said tenderly. “What can have happened?”

  “The worst thing,” he said. “I can’t think what to do.” He cast his eyes around the room, as if planning an escape, then sighed heavily and looked back to her. His shoulders slumped. “Kasimir was right. I cannot believe it, but it was so. Vaclav was assassinated, there was poison in his food.”

  “But by whom?” Miriel asked. I could hear worry in her voice. Had it been her uncle? The King dropped into a chair and sank his head into his hands. His voice was muffled, but we heard him clearly in the empty room.

  “Gerald Conradine.” In the stunned silence that followed, Miriel cast me a glance, and then, tentatively, reached out to touch the King’s shoulder.

  “Your Grace…”

  “It is the worst thing that could have happened,” he whispered. “The father of my friend. I had thought the problems behind us, that the bad blood between Conradine and Warden was gone. But what can I do, but bring him to justice?”

  I saw Miriel’s mind working furiously. “Do you believe, your Grace, truly, that it was him? To what purpose would he do such a thing?”

  I could see the path, circuitous and dark: Gerald Conradine, having disposed of the peaceful heir to Ismir, would wait for Heddred to go to war, the Duke and Guy de la Marque leading the charge while he waited behind. And then, with a scattering of bribes, the two leaders would fall, the army might turn against them. Old loyalties ran deep, who could say but that the soldiers might remember the last Conradine king? And with a few assassinations, it would be done, the kingdom back under the warlords.

  I had never trusted the man’s bland, smooth smile. And—I realized with a start—might he not have aimed to kill more than one person with poison? Few enough people knew who I was, but Wilhelm might have told his father of me. And Gerald fit with Donnett’s theory: he was a man many would never have suspected, had Miriel been killed.

  No, if she had been found murdered, Guy de la Marque would have borne the brunt of the suspicion, and Marie would be deemed unsuitable for marriage to the King. With Miriel gone, and Marie discredited, Gerald might well have a clearer path to the throne: Cintia. Cintia, well-placed to admit assassins to the King’s chambers; Cintia, who could be trusted to step aside for her father and mother when Garad was dead, or simply rule as a puppet queen.

  I did not like the fact that the list of our enemies only grew longer, the more I thought about it.

  “Yes, I can believe he would do it,” the King whispered. “He told me that the peace with Ismir would never hold. Before the assassination, he urged the Council to invade. He did not like that I would not do so. I only wanted peace…”

  “You cannot think of what could have been. There are only two paths to peace now,” Miriel said simply. “Your Grace, you must either prove that Gerald Conradine did not have Duke Vaclav assassinated, or you must hold him up to justice. If you admit it, but shelter him, there will be bad blood indeed—between Heddred and Ismir.”

  “How could I prove that he did not do it?” the King asked.

  “What is the evidence against him?” Miriel countered.

  “A man who came forward, saying he had information for the King. He said that he had been paid to bring poison to a man in the Duke’s household, but had not known why. The servant was long gone, but they found the man who paid him, and he said under torture that it had been the Conradines who sent him.” Miriel did not even flinch at the mention of torture; sentiment was far from her. She knelt gracefully on the floor of the room, at his side, her skirts pooling around her.

  “Who tortured him?” she asked.

  “I don’t know who.” The King shook his head. “But what does it—”

  “Was it Kasimir’s men?” she asked, delicately. “For we know that a man will say anything, under torture.” From her knowing smile, she expected the King to understand her, but he only frowned.

  “We can discredit him, but that gives us nothing,” he said, frustration rising in his voice. To her credit, no irritation showed in Miriel’s eyes.

  “Perhaps not. But Kasimir is power-hungry, and he has been outspoken about many things. One of them: Voltur. We know that Vaclav desired only peace, he would not have regained Voltur to avenge Kasimir’s father. Say…” Miriel paused, and looked off into the distance. “Say that Kasimir approached Gerald Conradine: in return for Gerald’s help in assassinating Vaclav, so that there should be no trace leading to Kasimir, and in return for Voltur, Kasimir would help the Conradines reclaim the throne. Gerald refused, and Kasimir vowed revenge.”

  “Is that true?” the King asked, astounded. I tried not to sigh at his ready belief, but Miriel was more controlled. She only shrugged her slim shoulders and smiled up at him.

  “It could be,” she said, with a cunning smile. “That is all. It is highly plausible, is it not? Who benefitted most from Vaclav’s assassination? It was not Gerald Conradine, it was Kasimir. If you tell Dusan of this, he will be unable to name you as wrong. And—” she held up one finger “—were you to convince him, Dusan would choose another heir. A more peaceful heir.”

  The King gnawed at his lip,
and I remembered how quick his mind was, when he was not staring into Miriel’s eyes. I saw, too, that he was not above this lie. He did not have the look of a man who objects on moral ground, but instead the look of a man who fears only that his lie might be found out.

  “How could I explain why I did not warn him of Kasimir’s treachery?” he asked, at last. I turned to look at Miriel; I could not have answered it myself. But she was equal to the challenge.

  “You were ill,” Miriel said simply. “You were never told. Gerald Conradine took the offer directly to Guy de la Marque, who did not wish to trouble you with it.”

  “That would cast Guy in a poor light,” the King observed, and for a moment, I thought Miriel had gone too far in her uncle’s interests. The King would see that she was undermining every other powerful player in the Court.

  “Truly?” Miriel asked, as if surprised; she had anticipated this. “Think a moment—Guy de la Marque and Dusan fought against each other in battle. De la Marque has no reason to love Dusan, nor protect him, and would Dusan have believed such a warning from the mouth of his enemy? Would he not have seen it merely as an attempt to sow discord? I think many on the Council would believe that he had done the right thing. Even Dusan should understand that.”

  “Ah.” The King settled back in his chair, and Miriel gave a little smile to herself. She was correct, of course—such an action would be understandable. And yet, with the littlest change of inflection as she told the story in the maidens’ chamber, with the most casual comment dropped at just the right place in a conversation, Guy de la Marque would come to be known as the guardian who embroiled his King in a political fiasco, and exposed his rival to shame and suspicion.

  “I would have to take this to the Council,” the King said, finally. I marveled at his ability to discard the notion that a councilor of his might have assassinated a future head of state. The fact no longer mattered to Garad at all; did the Court warp all it touched? “Gerald would agree, of course, but Guy…”